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31 Mo. 24

Simpson v. Simpson

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided October 15, 1860

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1860-10-15

Charles Circuit Court. This was an action for a divorce by John Simpson against Jane Simpson. The court refused to grant the divorce. It made a decree granting to the defendant an allowance of two hundred dollars per year out of the estate of the plaintiff, and allowing the defendant to “ act for herself and receive and hold in her own right her wages and earnings without interference or control of said plaintiff.” I. Plaintiff was not bound to support defendant.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1860-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently October 1964

14 state decisions

3018601870188018901900191019201930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Napton, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This is a proceeding by the husband to procure a divorce on the ground that his wife has absented herself, without a reasonable cause, for two years and more.

¶3It appears that the parties were married in 1840 in the city of New York, whe.re they continued to reside for about ten years, during which time there were three children born of the marriage; that in 1850 they removed to Binghampton, a *26town in the interior of that state; that in 1852 the defendant returned to the city of New York with her children and has resided there in her mother’s house, until her recent removal to this state for the purpose of defending this suit. It does not appear very clearly whether the move to New York was designed as a temporary visit, or was intended to be a permanent separation; but it is quite apparent that, upon either supposition, it was made and continued with the consent of the plaintiff. There was, therefore, no ground for a divorce.

¶4There is no evidence of any serious disagreement between the parties whilst they lived together, except what is to be inferred from the mere fact of separation. There was, however, abundant evidence to show that the defendant and her children were in very destitute circumstances, and received no assistance or support from the plaintiff. The circuit court, therefore, under the eleventh section of the act concerning divorce and alimony, decreed an annual allowance for the wife and children.

¶5Judgment affirmed.

The other judges concur.
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